Smartphone app for disease diagnosis within one hour

Infections are getting increased day by day in number. Scientists are having a tough time in finding the quickest cost-effective way to detect the pathogen.

A research team from UC Santa Barbara published an article named ‘Smartphone-based pathogen diagnosis in urinary sepsis patients’ in EbioMedicine journal. A rapid diagnosis of the most commonly prevalent urinary tract infection is possible using smartphone app and mobile camera, where the chemical reaction is measured followed by diagnosis within an hour. Hence, faster and cost-effective recovery is very much possible.

Professor Michael Mahan, the lead author of the study, said "This simple test for urinary tract infections can be conducted in a fraction of the time and cost of clinical diagnostics -- one hour versus 18 to 28 hours. We believe that this lab test holds the exciting potential to bring state-of-the-art diagnostics within easy reach of non-expert users."

This rapid test can detect the pathogen in any patient sample like urine, blood, and faeces. This lab kit including a smartphone, a hot plate, a cardboard box, and LED lights, would cost less than $100. This test can also detect emerging pathogens that lead to health outbreaks. This custom-built app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store, specially developed for the Android users. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in addition to the support provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan-Zuckerberg BioHub.

Fried, a clinical care physician said, "The app enables early-stage diagnosis and intervention, which is particularly important in the context of multidrug-resistant pathogens for which treatment options are highly limited. Such early treatment also reduces the risk of the emergence of multidrug-resistant pathogens."

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Connection between Anxiety, Depression and Migraine Studied by Novartis & Healint with Self Tracking App

A new study conducted by Novartis and Healint using Migraine Buddy, Healint’s migraine tracking app. Proved that, contrary to earlier belief, long-standing migraines could engender anxiety and depression.

Feedback from 43,189 users of the app was evaluated to reach this conclusion. The findings were presented at the Fourth Congress of the European Academy of Neurology.

"Anxiety and depressive moods are often considered as triggers of a migraine attack for people who live with this complex condition," Francois Cadiou, founder and CEO of Healint, said in a statement. "Healint’s unique real-world evidence suggests, however, that anxiety and depression may result from migraine, not the other way around. Our goal with Migraine Buddy’s innovative tracking capabilities is always to help doctors identify the best treatment choice for each patient, using patient-reported real-world and clinical evidence. The combination of the right treatments and lifestyle adjustments can yield the best outcome for the patient, and reduce the societal and economic burden of migraines.”

While suffering a migraine attack, 43% users showed signs of anxiety or depression, the authors noted. 50% of users who suffered from a migraine attack for 15 or more days in a month also suffered from anxiety or depression, while 34% of users who suffered for four or less days, had anxiety or depression.

“Our alliance with Healint is a testament to our commitment to the migraine community and those with this common, debilitating, and complex disease,” Lisa Deschamps, global business head of neuroscience at Novartis, mentioned in a statement. “Migraine Buddy helps people with migraine identify triggers, track the course of their attacks, and gain insight into their condition. By joining forces with Healint, we aim to support people with migraine, and provide them with an innovative solution to better manage this disease’s impact.”

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Patient Matching Using Smartphones to Enhance Interoperability

Successfully matching patients with the right healthcare practitioners seems to be a major issue for enhanced interoperability. An ONC report by RAND showed that in 2014, the range of patient matching across the healthcare setting was only around 50 percent.

To address the issue of health IT-related federal agencies and private sector developers are seeking upgrades with options ranging from artificial intelligence and cloud computing to blockchain technologies for an enhanced patient mediated medical records exchange. Still, the issue is not completely solved.

The first US effort sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts suggested that the utilization of smartphones with specific biometric features like facial recognition and fingerprint ID could enhance patient matching in a better way. But its implementation requires the systematic development of technical specifications and prototypes in addition to s support team to track the progress of this technology. This approach will also take time to build trust among patients and providers.

Robert S. Rudin, the lead author of this study and an information scientist at RAND, said "Engaging patients in solving the problem likely requires real-world pilot testing and evaluation of an array of approaches."

Robert S. Rudin further added in a statement, "Tools and methods that allow an individual’s mobile phone or smartphone to be used for improving medical record matching among different health providers appear to be particularly promising for a patient-empowered approach to the problem."

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Easy Interoperability for all mHealth Apps

Several top tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and Salesforce have vowed to remove barriers which prevent customers from accessing their personal mHealth data whenever they need it. The announcement was made at the Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference held in Washington D.C.
Seema Verma, administrator of The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said, “Imagine all of that data aggregated in one place; Imagine if you could combine that with your genetic information, and that you would have the ability to take that information and give it to researchers, give it to your doctors?”
Last week, CMS released an updated on their new version of Blue Button 2.0, an open API tool which would enable around 53 million Medicare beneficiaries to access five years’ worth of their data.
Mark Scrimshire, who leads the Blue Button 2.0 announced, “We’re trying to create this ecosystem where app developers can go and create tools that are really useful for beneficiaries and hopefully for the wider patient population.” 
Seema Verma further added, “CMS is leading to support MyHealthEData by releasing more data and taking action to drive interoperability and patient control of their data; We are calling on (the) industry to follow our lead and step up to the challenge. It’s time for the rest of the industry to do its part. I have called on insurers to begin releasing claims data as we did with Blue Button 2.0 and make data available to patients.”

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De-Novo Marketing FDA Approval for Natural Cycles’ Contraception App

The US-FDA (US- Food and Drugs Administration) announced on 13 August that it will permit the marketing of Natural Cycles’ contraception app in the US for pre-menopausal women aged 18 years and older. This app was previously approved in the UK and is currently being investigated by various regulatory agencies. This algorithm-driven app helps in tracking menstrual cycles and informs users of their fertile status.

Dr. Terri Cornelison, the assistant director for the health of women in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said “Consumers are increasingly using digital health technologies to inform their everyday health decisions, and this new app can provide an effective method of contraception if it’s used carefully and correctly; But women should know that no form of contraception works perfectly, so an unplanned pregnancy could still result from correct usage of this device.”

This contraception app is a subscription service which includes both the app and a basal thermometer. By taking the temperature in morning and submitting extra information about their cycle, the app generates details about the user’s fertility. The app is a CE certified contraceptive in Europe, which raised $30 million in funding in November 2017.

The low-to-moderate-risk levels of the app were reviewed through the FDA’s de novo premarket review pathway. The FDA announced that it would be launching “special control” criteria to shed light on its reliability, accuracy, and pregnancy prevention effectiveness for future contraception apps. But the investigations regarding robust substantiation and unplanned pregnancies while using the app are still ongoing.

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$700K Granted to Bot M.D. for International, Doctor-Interactive AI Chatbot App

A total of $700,000 was raised by Bot M.D., an AI chatbot app developer for doctors, in seed funding from Y Combinator and angels, including Steve Blank, one of the inventors of the Lean Startup method.

"If you ever try searching stuff on Google, Google is a consumer-facing search engine, right?" founder and CEO Dorothea Koh commented. "So the stuff on top is always going to be WebMD, Mayo Clinic, [etc.]. These are not websites that doctors would necessarily go to for information. They want information from journals; they want information from peer review, reliable sources. And that’s exactly what Bot M.D. does for them."

Bot M.D. is intended to be an unconventional resource of data for doctors, chiefly the information they need in their daily practice like drug interactions, medical calculators, guidelines and protocols, and information on rare diseases. Doctors can even search for medical images and videos on the app. The app uses AI to display this information in a personified and even comical chatbot.

Apart from providing information, the app also has a dictation/transcribing feature.

"In particular in Venezuela, one of our doctors told us in his hospital, they’re kind of rural and remote," Koh said. "So they have eight medical residents who have to fight over one computer at the end of the day to type up all of their case notes. So the transcription thing, which is basically automatic voice detection transcription, is basically a lifesaver because all you have to do is record it and it transcribes it and you can email a copy to yourself."

It also presents a chat feature that allows doctors to securely chat with each another, and even call Bot M.D. (the AI) if they need added information on the topic being discussed.

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App to Help Doctors, Patients Dealing with Domestic Abuse

Resolve Greater Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology researchers got together to build a new app that helps evaluate a person’s physical and mental health. The system also assists doctors when giving advice regarding domestic abuse, which according to CDC data, affects one in four women and one in seven men. The app named RITa is currently being used at primary care facilities in Rochester, New York. 

 “Family care practitioners are often the first place victims of domestic violence turn for help," Allison O'Malley, CEO of Resolve, said in a statement. "Intimate-partner violence (IPV) is a complex issue with many negative health implications, and physicians need to know what to do when patients disclose abuse or when their symptoms raise concern.”

The program is directed from a primary care physicians' tablet, though healthcare professionals also plan to introduce the system to the public, according to a statement. A feature within the app, named RITa, asks 30 validating questions to users about different facets of their relationship and health. It then suggests the doctor and patient recommendations and further actions. 

"RITa is the first application of a 'female' avatar to screen for IPV among victims,” Caroline Easton, professor in RIT's College of Health Sciences and Technology School of Behavioral Health Sciences, said in a statement. "RITa illustrates how we can combine advancements in science and technology with art and design to make a real impact in our community and provide safety for those at risk for serious harm or injury.”

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